KEEPING COMMON FRIENDS

Last weekend I had the opportunity of attending a function and I witnessed a newly wedded couple as they mingled with the crowd. The wife was obviously more conversant with the crowd and very soon the husband was left alone for a long stretch of time.

This got me thinking about how couples incorporate and manage their friends as they navigate the delicate labyrinth of the marriage institution. I remember that when I got married my wife and I had to decide on the type of friends we were to keep close to the family.

There was a particular friend I had who before I got married had always tended to take advantage of me, although I did not mind too much, but my wife felt that I was the one who was investing so much in the friendship and getting little if nothing out of it. For one reason or the other my wife was not comfortable with my friendship with this chap and over the years she has been largely vindicated because the friend has virtually disappeared into thin air. There are some friends of mine that have over the years become virtually members of our family because both my wife and I endorse their friendship.

The crust of the matter is that friends have a way of influencing our marriage one way or the other. Most third party influence in the home comes from either relatives or friends and usually friends have a disposition to compel us to do what they do.

My observation last weekend showed my the danger inherent from the way the young couple were carrying on. If the marriage is to avoid the pitfall of undue third party influence from friends, they both must have common friends.

They must seat down and decide from both sides the friends they both will be comfortable with and try and relate to such friends as a family. In other words, at the level of marriage the two of you should have more family friends than personal friends.

My wife's friend ought to be my friend to the extent that I should be comfortable with such a person. If my wife's friend makes me uncomfortable then my wife should begin to re-appraise her relationship with such a person and vice versa.

What the wife I referred to ought to have done was to bring her friends to meet her husband or take her husband around to meet her friends. To make the man seat down while gallivanting is unacceptable.

I will like to have your comments on this.

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